Tories really messing around with real estate

Canadian Tory Finance Minister and Whitby—Ajax MP Jim Flaherty is in town today to help fundraise at a dinner roast for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound and backbench Tory MP Larry Miller, with Tories Whitby—Oshawa MPP and Flaherty's wife Christine Elliott and backbench Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound MPP Bill Walker on the side, talking with local Tory politicos, Conservative honchos and the media about the bill for the omnibus budget. However, do not expect him to speak on the real estate market, the municipal infrastructure deficit or even the pension raise in age and pay, nor the possible privatization of the public crown corportation Canada Mortgage and Housing Corpation within this decade, a corporation whose maximum amortization period he just capped from 30 to 25 years. Jim has been talking on the Hill about making the public insurer of housing mortgage and public overseer of the whole housing market a private affair, perhaps spreading out the mortgages so borrowers pay more with an increased annual percentage interest rate and save less over time with monthly mortgage payments that are more manageable, but keep them tied down harder and longer.

Ever since Flaherty started his war on the average Canadian investors on Halloween 2006, starting with his new proposed rule changes for taxation of Canadian income trusts levelling business, while planning to reduce the corporate rate even further to protect us from tax leakage, he has singlehandedly attacked one area of investment while allowing business as usual in other areas.

Perhaps its his hardcore ideologic makeup, or just some tough lobbying in the background he has legislatively bent down to, but Flaherty and the Harper administration have pointed the finger at the wrong area of investment, calling the economic stimulator a debt instigator. Again, instead of looking at the way the banking community works and how investment is done on Bay Street, they are unconsciously lashing out at the real estate market on Main Street, by messing with the mortgage rules for a third time, to both cool the investment market and cut the household debt in early July. When longtime Mississauga Mayor Hazel Mccallion is no longer on side with this federal Conservative government, herself a hardcore Tory in the blue who looks to the Grits and Justin Trudeau as a possible leadership replacement being a young man with a great future, you must know that both Jim and Stephen are looking at the dark end of their majority government tunnel so hopefully they can both start thinking legacy now rather than ideology later.